Disclaimer: As of the first chapter.
Author Notes: Let us all breathe a collective sigh of relief: the story is finally taking a turn for the main event.
Warnings: The Drama Club President enters. (Not in a bad way, no.)
Chapter 5: Looking for a Juliet
The buzz in the classroom immediately died when Romero stepped in. He always had that sort of effect on people. On top of that, he didn't step in alone. Behind him, walking in a manner that would have made Robert's gait pale in comparison was a young man with a head of fiery red-orange hair and a single golden loop on his ear. He had about him an air of serenity and his lips were curved into a languid smile. The Drama Club President certainly knew a thing or two about bringing the theatre with you everywhere and was constantly set on having some sort of effect on the people around him.
To Tala and co. he was simply plain annoying. Not that he cared for what other people thought anyway, for his head was always on an invisible stage that he brought around with him everywhere. The moment he walked through the threshold of the door to the classroom, practically all eyes were on him, wondering who he was and what was his business there. Tala looked back at Bryan and made a face. Kai, admittedly unconcerned about the young man, kept his arms crossed over his chest and retained that practiced look of bored indifference.
Romero stopped before the class and announced, "To all the freshmen here, may I introduce to you this fine gentleman who is the President of our school's own Drama Club: Brooklyn."
Said person stepped forward and afforded himself a gallant bow which owed him an involuntary, though hesitant, round of applause.
Straightening up, he said to Romero, "You flatter me, sir."
"As much as I know all of you are eager to begin our class,"---a very quiet moan of denial washed through the class---"Brooklyn is here to share with you something about an upcoming Drama Club event. Perhaps, Brooklyn," Romero said, looking over at the young man, "you would prove to be a better person to tell them about it?"
Brooklyn nodded at the teacher and smiled.
"A pleasure," he replied. Turning to the class, he smiled again. Of course, no one smiled back but he was unfazed.
"As some of you, eager to join the Drama Club, may have noticed, we did not have the usual auditions for recruitment this year…"
Tala hissed, more to himself than anybody, "That's 'cause no one signed up for auditions."
Bryan snickered at that, Ray 'ahem'-ed with subdued mirth, and even Kai smirked a little.
"I sincerely apologize to those you who are eager to join us, but...the Drama Club have decided to do a talent scouting among all the junior classes."
No one said a word as Brooklyn went on to explain about the club before finally delving into the reason as to why he had come to make a personal appearance.
"For the main event of the college's Arts Festival, we are going to be staging the age old Shakespeare tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Currently, the Drama Club already has all the characters we need, but the star spot for one of the main characters, we have decided to give it to one of you juniors. Where better to find such a person for the part than in a literature class eh?"
"So...which character is it?" someone asked from up front the moment Brooklyn paused to let all he had said sink in.
Brooklyn smiled at the person with a sort of knowing glint in his eyes and replied simply with effect, "Juliet."
There was a deadened silence for the next few minutes before a contrasting roar of laughter rang through the room.
"But we're all guys!" someone piped up.
Brooklyn's expression still retained that look of patient bemusement. He shared a look with Romero who rolled his eyes with an elegant wave of his hand.
Romero straightened up from his half-leaning position by the desk and went up to the front of the class.
"Gentlemen, I do not see what is so funny!" he spoke up, silencing the class immediately. "During Shakespeare's time, women were not allowed to act on stage. So all the parts were played by men!"
"And I am sure someone in this room is more than fully qualified to play the part of the lovely Juliet," Brooklyn said next, looking about the room.
Bryan poked Tala from behind, causing the red-head to whisper sharply, "I like reading literature, not act in one!"
Bryan snickered behind his hand.
And so, with a significant amount of complaints from the "manliest" of men in the class, the readings for the part of Juliet began.
Kai was the one to get it all started. No, not because he volunteered. He's too cool for that. Kai had simply made a sound that suspiciously sounded to Romero's trained ears like a snort of disdain and had thus been called upon to read a line from one of Juliet's parts in the play. Kai coolly stood, sauntered up to the front of the classroom, hands in the pockets of his blazer, with his book nowhere in sight, and recited an extremely bad rendition of Juliet's famous, "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo" and went back to his seat the same way he came.
When he sat down, he turned to see all of his friends staring at him with a twitch in the sides of their faces.
"Man," Ray finally spoke up. "You suck."
Kai did not reply, only curled up one end of his lips before settling back into his chair.
After Kai, everyone had the misfortune to try, well, except for Tala who nicely pointed out of his being in favour of critical study of a piece of literature, the academic nature of which would render him utterly incapable of producing any sort of effect on stage. Romero smiled at the red-head and turned to the next person in line for the mini-audition, who, unfortunately, was Bryan. Not even Tala's casual pinch on his butt could make an actor out of him.
Brooklyn sitting in his corner was losing hope of ever finding the right Juliet. None of the guys in the class were right for the part. Not all of them were brusque, but those who were genteel did not have the right flare—that eye-catching something that could make a man's heart turn somersaults when his eyes first catch sight of the person. Oh wait…perhaps, he had been too preoccupied with the mini-audition up front. For there was that someone right there, sitting in his corner, watching everything that was going on with wide, interested eyes. Eyes that were chocolate-hued and innocent, silky mane falling into them, and when the young man smiled, yes, he smiled at the blond behind him once during the audition, at the point when Brooklyn was watching; it was something to see how the smile immediately touched those eyes.
If that had been Juliet, any Romeo would say what he said when he first laid eyes on her. If that had been Juliet, any Romeo would gladly impale himself with his sword if she'd ask him to (no...no wait, that was a different tragedy or was it?).
Romero was saying something to the class about speeding things up but paused midway in his speech and the class subsequently went silent when Brooklyn suddenly leaped to his feet and marched up to Tyson Granger.
"You!" he said, jabbing a finger at Tyson, leaving only a hair's breadth of space between that finger and Tyson's nose. Tyson could only lean back and stare down the bridge of his nose at that finger. "You will be perfect!"
"Me?"
"Why didn't I ask you to come forward sooner?" Brooklyn went on. Turning to Romero, he asked, "Shall we let him try?"
"Why...of course...if no one objects. Some of you have not had your turn."
Romero looked about the class but no one protested. There were some who were even shaking their heads, their eyes wide, glad for anything that would get them out of auditioning. Romero looked at Kenny shivering behind his text and then at Max, who met his eyes but shook his head vigorously as an added response. With a shrug and raised brows, Romero gestured for Tyson to come forward.
Kai watched with a strange sense of…something…roiling in the pits of his being as Brooklyn latched a hand around Tyson's slender wrist and hoisted the young man to his feet. All Kai could focus on was that hand around Tyson's wrist as Tyson frantically told Brooklyn that he would be bad at it. However, Brooklyn was insistent and Tyson soon stood before the class amidst a rousing round of bawdy hoots and catcalls. While Kai made a mental note to kill all those perverts in his class, Tyson rolled his eyes at his excited classmates and started to read the part in the play which Brooklyn had specifically asked him to read. It was the last part of the play where Juliet took Romeo's dagger and made ready to kill herself.
When Tyson started, the catcalls were killed in everybody's throat. No one expected Tyson to be so…good. Without being told to, he'd been able to lighten his voice to a husky, perfectly androgynous voice, adding new dimensions to the role of Juliet that could be read in so many ways. (As Tala sat and mused.)
The whole class was silent as Tyson read the part. Brooklyn listened rapturously while Romero leaned back into his chair at the teacher's desk with his eyes closed and a smile playing across his lips as if he knew something all along. Kai actually listened, for the first time in literature class, and watched with almost stunned regard as Tyson went about Juliet's final speech. His heart gave a jolt that he found hard to ignore when Tyson let out a final cry, indicating the moment when Juliet plunged the dagger into herself. It was not in the play, but Tyson enacted it well, and it was only verbally.
When Tyson finished, almost everyone in the class applauded, the catcalls returning to grate on Kai's nerves once more. Tyson up front held up the thumbs up sign and winked. He had to admit that despite feeling a little like a fool for acting so ardently, he liked the applause he was getting. Romero clapped daintily, knowing all along they had a Juliet in the pretty boy, but Brooklyn shot up from his seat and drew Tyson into an embrace, surprising the younger man.
"Finally! I thought I would never find you!" he cried, crushing Tyson to his chest.
Tala rolled his eyes; trust Brooklyn to bring theatricality to the lower masses. He looked over at Kai sitting beside him to convey his dislike for the Drama Club President but stopped when he saw how tensely Kai was seated in his chair, despite the latter's attempt to cover it up with his usual, cross-armed indifference. Tala's attention returned to the scene in front of the class, at Tyson appearing as if he was having the life squeezed out of him by Brooklyn's embrace, then turned back to Kai. Tala allowed himself a little smile and turned back to the front.
In that moment, held so tightly by Brooklyn, Tyson found himself looking over at Kai across the room. Their eyes met for a short, extremely short while before Kai dropped his eyes to the top of his desk. Tyson dislodged himself from Brooklyn and looked up at the taller man.
"Does that mean…" he began hesitantly.
"Rehearsals start soon, my dear."
—A vein in Kai's forehead popped.—
After the whole mini-audition, Romero assigned the class' project for the semester. He gave two choices: Either they could actively get involved in the Drama Club's production by being part of the backstage crew or write research essays on some of the texts that have been covered in the class.
Then, class was dismissed, a whole half an hour early.
Kai only spent enough time to see the whole roomful of boys surge towards Tyson once Romero called dismissal and hear someone say to Tyson, "Boy Tyson, I bet you look hot in a dress on stage. I can entertain myself with that thought at night already!" After that, Kai was out of the room followed by Tala and the others.
Tyson stood on tiptoe amidst his newfound crowd of admirers just in time to see Kai's back sidle out of the classroom. He dropped back into the center of the crowd and smiled at those talking to him, not really hearing what they were saying.
"C'mon, Kai! I saw that face in class. You hated the way Brooklyn was all over Tyson," Tala pressed, invading Kai's personal space terribly by standing far too close. Kai was backed up uncomfortably against his locker as Tala pushed his face still nearer.
Feeling a rising blush, one he didn't expect to be there seeing no cause for it, Kai abruptly turned around and tried to open the door of his locker. However, Tala was not one to let anyone get away too easily.
"You know, Kai," Tala hissed darkly into Kai's ear. "I will try not to bring up this matter anymore after this, since it is a matter of the heart after all, and all men need to discover it for themselves. But I will say this one thing before I lay off you: You like this boy."
Pulling himself away from Kai's back, Tala added with a grin, "Why, you might even be in love with him."
"I don't do love," Kai retorted coldly, glad for the breathing space.
"No one is asking you to do, Kai," Bryan, who had been watching, put in. "Just to fall in it."
Tala turned to his boyfriend then and cried, "Why Bryan! That is the most romantic thing I have EVER heard coming from you!"
Kai stalked off, leaving the lovebirds and his gawking bevy of friends---Ray and Spencer---to head for the next class with his hands in his pockets and his books tucked under one arm.
Just a few steps around the corner, Kai heard someone run up to him and later slow down to match his gait which had not faltered one bit.
Ray smiled over at his friend and spoke up, "You know, Kai, I have a problem telling Max exactly how I feel about him."
"Your point, Kon?" Kai asked irritably, not turning.
The other chuckled and said, "Maybe you are the same way."
Kai stopped in the middle of the hallway, after which Ray did the same, and faced his friend squarely.
"I am not like you," he articulated.
Ray picked up the pace again, this time breaking into a light jog towards his next class. Looking jovially over his shoulder at the still-standing Kai, he shouted, "Yeah, buddy. You may not be like me…but I know you well enough to be able to tell that you tend to be meaner when you are uncertain about something!"
Kai stared after Ray's quickly receding back, wondering at the latter's observation. His eyes suddenly caught the sight of a familiar head of midnight blue headed his way amongst a crowd of boys and, without thinking, he darted into the nearest classroom. He stared at the door, listening till he was certain that the group had moved away. He cursed himself inwardly. He didn't know why his breathing was so strained, why his heart beat the way it did—so fast, so urgently. He felt suffocated and all this because Tyson and his friends were walking past?
"Uh, young man?" The voice from behind him made him turn.
On doing so, he found, to his horror, that he was standing at the door of a classroom, filled with students who had looked up from their books, those bored snapped out of their boredom entirely. The teacher, the one who had spoken, stared at him strangely, holding an open book in his hand, having been interrupted so violently from his lecturing.
"Are you...from this class?" he asked eventually.
"Um, no…" Kai managed to utter before darting out of the classroom the same way he came in, only, then, he could hear the titters going around the students in the class.
Damn, that was embarrassing, he thought as he hurried to his next class.
Next Chapter: A Lonely Mansion's Visitor